


more difficult than it looks

by violetinfidel



Series: drabbles [5]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
Genre: and pissing people off is how he gets his kicks, friendly or otherwise, shadow has an annoying quota to fill for the day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 04:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14783994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetinfidel/pseuds/violetinfidel
Summary: "could you do a written of what if shadow could turn others into shadows, and turns vio into a shadow (or gives vio powers similar to him)? go all out with this writing, fluff or angst, doesn't matter, i just want to see how you would take the idea of shadow being able to turn others into shadows like him."(didn't quite match the prompt i was given, but a take on it nonetheless!)





	more difficult than it looks

The battles have been going very poorly, as of late, and there isn’t much that can be done about it.

“Something isn’t right,” Green says, during a brief reprieve in the fight.

“They’re not  _dying_.” Blue’s hammer is disgusting, to say the least, caked with clotted moblin blood and bits of bone, and he holds it out like it’s offended him.

“They’re heavies,” Shadow remarks, casually, like everyone knows that.

“Heavies?”

“Heavies. Armored. Dense bones. Bred out ‘cause they’re strong. They don’t feel much pain, and beatin’ on ‘em is useless.”

“If you know so much how come you aren’t doing anything?”

“I am!” He flicks his hand; a group of bokoblins a few yards away fall to the ground and don’t get back up. “I can only do so much, you know. It’s tiring.”

“You’ve barely been doing anything!”

“Well, that’s ‘cause I just got here.”

Green scowls. “You’d said you’d be waiting in the shadows.”

“And I was! In bed, sleeping. Gotta have my beauty sleep for these things, y’know?”

“I’m gonna hit you.”

Green looks around for the other two; he sees Red carrying a stretcher back towards the field medic’s tent, and Vio’s breaking off his company to come join them.

“Arrows are not doing very much,” He says, “ _Shadow_ should have  _mentioned_ they were resistant to physical attacks.”

“What makes you think  _I_ knew?” He backs off under Vio’s glare. “Well, in my defense, I just got here like a couple minutes ago.”

“So what’re we supposed to do?”

“Use magic,” Shadow says, with a very irritating smirk, and shrugs. “Or you could keep wasting your energy on fighting them, I don’t care.”

Vio studies his face, briefly. “You know something that you do not want to share.”

“‘Cause it’s  _dangerous_ , and we can’t have the heroes getting  _hurt_ , can we?”

“What is it?”

“I can share my powers,” Shadow says, and takes a step back when Blue threatens again to hit him, “Of course, it takes from mine, and it’s only temporary, and none of you know how to control magic, so it’s really impractical.”

“Vio, could you please go get Red?”

He does, and warns Shadow before he goes that he’d better cooperate, and Shadow stands sulking a safe distance from Blue while they wait.

“Are you sure I can’t just use the rod?” Red looks very skeptical. “I mean, does it have to be  _Shadow’s_ magic?”

“What, is somethin’ wrong with my magic?”

Red stares at him.

Shadow stares right back. “Mine’s gonna work the best, but if you don’t wanna  _win_ , I understand.”

Red huffs a frustrated breath. “Fine.” He starts to slide the rod back through its loop in his belt, but Shadow takes it from him.

“It’d be better to use it through this,” He says, “Don’t want you killing yourself if you screw it up.”

“And how’s that supposed to work?”

“Same way the fire and ice do.” He palms the orb, and tears it off the rod.

“Dude, what the  _hell_?” Blue goes to snatch it, but Shadow’s quicker, steps away and swats at him with the rod. “Why’d you break it?”

“I didn’t! I’m only replacing it.” He concentrates for a moment, cups the holder, and threads of a wispy, inky substance weave themselves together, coil until they’ve coalesced into an orb not unlike the original, black and deep purple and ever-shifting. “You be careful with this,” He warns, hands it back almost delicately, “It’s drawing off my magic right now, so only use it if you gotta.”

“Use it as much as you possibly can,” Blue mutters aside, to Red, and gets a hard punch on the arm.

“I’m gonna have to use it the whole time, though.”

“I mean don’t go crazy with it. Don’t be showy, just kill ‘em.”

“That’s funny, ‘cause I could say the same thing to you.”

Shadow glances at Vio; he looks proud. “I get to be showy ‘cause it’s mine. You do only what you have to.”   

Red glances at the other orb, dulled and muted in Shadow’s hand. “So what do we do with the other one?”

Shadow glances at it too, as though he’d forgotten about it. “What, this old thing?” He holds it up, gives it a cursory glance, and crushes it. There’s a burst of flames, a flash of frost, and then all that’s left of it is the smoke curling from his palm, and Red is staring at him wide-eyed. “What’s wrong? It was half broken anyway.”

“Yeah, well, that was the only one we had,” Red says, anger creeping quickly into his voice.

Shadow just shrugs, and grins. “I can always make another. That one woulda burst on you soon anyway.”

“Okay,” Says Vio, “Let’s all get back to it, then, and  _Shadow_ -” He says it pointedly, and snatches the back of his tunic and begins to drag him away, “-can help the archers fill arrows, since he clearly must conserve energy.”

Shadow protests fiercely, but Vio gets him behind the archers’ lines and from there he can’t very well just walk away, so he sits and sulks as he passes off arrows, and entertains himself by picking off monsters long-range and watching Red struggle to figure out the new magic.

And it really is a struggle, Red finds, because as volatile as fire and ice can be, it’s nothing compared to shadow’s magic. He can’t trust it long-range, can’t trust himself to control it that well, has to get far too close for comfort and nearly ends up bludgeoned more than once.

And sure, they win, whatever  _that_ means, and he’s exhausted by the end of it, throws the rod at Shadow and slumps against Vio.

“Just give me my fire back,” He complains, and Shadow laughs at him.

“What, something wrong with this one?”

“It’s hard.” Vio passes him a flask of water; he accepts gratefully, and hands it back empty, and digs through his pack for something to eat. “I could hardly control it.”

Shadow’s grin is arrogant and very irritating, and he leans back against nothing, eases himself off the ground, just to show off. “Harder than it looks, yeah?”

Warily, Red nods.

“I know, I make everything look easy.”

“If I hadn’t drunk the water I’d pour it on you.” He sighs, sits on the hill and takes the rod out. “What am I supposed to do with this now?” He traces a finger along the threads of purple in the orb; as he does it unwinds, trails off like smoke, leaves him with a useless metal stick.

“I can just make a new one.”

Vio sits beside Red, plucks a broken arrow from his quiver and throws it at Shadow and works on destringing his bow. “How does that work?”

“Same way.” They both look skeptical about it. “Well, I made it in the first place, why shouldn’t I be able to fix it?”

“Then do it.”

“I’m tired.”

“Evidently not too tired to be floating.”

Shadow scowls, but relents, snatches the rod back and works on putting together a new top. “Rushed the old one,” He says, absorbed in weaving together the different strains, “Needed a distraction quick. I could make this better.”

“Why don’t you, then?”

“Tired.” It’s several minutes before he finishes, and when he does the rod looks warped, and very much not like it had when he’d begun.

Red looks it over. “What’d you do to it? It’s not the same.”

“First of all, you’re welcome.” He tosses it over, leaves Red to fumble for it; only a last-minute save from Vio keeps it from shattering on the ground. “Look at it. See anything different?”

“We’re tired too, so can you just say it and stop being annoying?”

Shadow rolls his eyes, sinks to the grass and lays down, folds his arms behind his head. “I made it double-sided,” He says, as if it were the most obvious thing on the planet- Red looks, and sees an orb sunk into each side. “One for ice and one for fire. Now you can use both at once if you gotta.”

Red’s torn between thanking him and hitting him- Vio saves him from that decision by hitting him in the face with a ration.

“The  _hell_ , dude, I just helped you.”

“Eat.”

“What, are you my mom now or something?”

“Then do not eat.”

Vio’s breaking into his own as Green and Blue come back, and Blue accidentally doesn’t notice Shadow and accidentally steps on him, accidentally, and Shadow accidentally almost trips him, and Green has to physically pull Blue to sit away from him before someone gets accidentally murdered.

“It looks different,” Green says, gestures to the rod, and Red gestures to Shadow, who’s currently flipping Blue off, who’s currently flipping Shadow off.

“He broke it and then fixed it and then re-fixed it.”

“I broke it intentionally,” Shadow adds from the middle of his flipping-off contest with Blue, “Couldn’t have all three on at once or it’d break. Like, for real break.”

“But you could just fix it, couldn’t you?”

“Shut up, Red.”

“Do not tell him to shut up.”

“You can shut up too.”

“Mature.”


End file.
